Free Republic

A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday ordered that a former New York City accountant who admitted to scoping out the New York Stock Exchange for al Qaeda be released early from his 18-year prison sentence. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood said Sabirhan Hasanoff, 44, of Brooklyn, had shown “extraordinary and compelling” reasons for being resentenced to time served under a law allowing the early “compassionate release” of some prison inmates. Wood, who sentenced Hasanoff in 2013, cited evidence he was the only available caregiver for his mother, who is in poor health, and his “striking and unique efforts” to rehabilitate...

A Swiss court handed suspended jail terms on Tuesday to two senior officials from a Swiss Islamic group for spreading propaganda supporting al Qaeda, in a retrial which followed their earlier acquittal. Nicolas Blancho, president of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS), and media spokesman Abdel Azziz Qaasim Illi were sentenced by the Federal Criminal Court to 15 months and 18 months in prison respectively, both suspended for three years. Prosecutors originally charged the two men and one other ICCS official in 2017 over videos posted online two years earlier that included interviews with leaders of Jabhat al-Nusra, at...

Troops eliminate terrorists in Damboa Troops of the Nigerian military successfully prevented attempts by members of Boko Haram insurgency group to attack their base in Damboa, Borno State on Sunday evening, killing 38 of the terrorists, PR Nigeria, a website known for reporting activities of security operatives has said. The website, which said its report was based on information from a top military intelligence officer however said five soldiers were also killed during the battle with the insurgents. The source added that bodies of the terrorists were recovered during a mopping-up operation. He was quoted to have said: “I can...

When the so-called Islamic State (IS) took over their town, Qaraqosh in northern Iraq, Mathi and his family had no choice but to flee. He, his wife Nazik and their six children fled to safety – they knew that their Christian faith made them extremely vulnerable. Five years later, thanks to support from Christian charity Open Doors, they have been able to return home. https://missionsbox.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Mathi-Returns-Home-to-Iraqs-Nineveh-Plains.mp4 My name is Mathi Habib Khodor and I have six children. In 2014 we were forcibly displaced from our city Qaraqosh (by Islamic State). But in 2017 our city was liberated. When I returned to...

Christian human rights leaders have called on the Trump administration to issue sanctions on Turkey in response to its actions in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict, and warned that Turkish actions were guided by "animus" against Christians. The calls came during a panel discussion, hosted by the group In Defence of Christians Friday, titled “Turkey is Committing Another Christian Genocide. Why is the Trump Administration Silent?” The event focused on Turkish actions in the recent conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The historic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has reignited in recent weeks. The two countries, formerly part of the Soviet Union (USSR),...

Three martyred in the blast in Shia Hazara market in Quetta Hazar Ganji on Sunday. A remote-controlled bomb exploded in Quetta. Due to that, at least three people embraced martyrdom and seven sustained injuries. According to police, the explosion took place at the Hazarganji fruit market on the outskirts of Quetta. They said the terrorists had planted explosives in a motorcycle. Preliminary investigations revealed that the terrorists used explosives weighing four to five kilogrammes in the attack. National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) in Islamabad had recently issued a threat alert for Peshawar and Quetta. It said that banned militants of...

Explosion in the northwestern city’s mosque which also serves as a religious school kills seven people and wounds at least 109 others. Islamabad, Pakistan – An explosion at a religious school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar has killed at least seven people and wounded 109 others, police and health officials say. The blast occurred at the Speen Jamaat mosque, which also serves as a religious school for the local community in the city’s Dir Colony area, at 8:30am local time (3:30 GMT) on Tuesday, a police official told Al Jazeera shortly after the blast. “[Students] were reading the...

Suspected Fulani extremists murdered a Christian man in an ambush-style attack as he and two others walked home from work. According to the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria, Justine Patrick was 25 when he was killed earlier this month. He was walking home from work with his coworkers Daniel Gyang and Sele Dung through some maize fields about an hour before sunset on Oct. 14, Gyang said. Patrick walked behind Gyang and Dung. “We never knew that a group of seven Fulani had already ambushed us,” Gyang said. The attackers rushed from the bush, raising sticks, machetes and...

Two facilitators from the Bible Society of Cameroon’s literacy program in the Far North region have been killed by Boko Haram over the past few weeks. After a two-year lull, attacks by Islamic militant group Boko Haram in that region are on the rise again, and are claiming many victims. Among the lives recently lost were two literacy facilitators from the Bible Society of Cameroon’s Alpha Program in the Parkwa language. One of them died in early August, and the second in mid-September. Jonas, 42, an elder in the Union of Evangelical Churches in Cameroon, was killed on the night...

The insurgents attacked the farmers on Sunday as they were harvesting crops in Moranti outside Maiduguri. Eight farmers have been killed by Boko Haram jihadists in northeastern Nigeria, security sources said Monday. The insurgents attacked the farmers on Sunday as they were harvesting crops in Moranti outside Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, two sources said. “The attackers used knives, not guns, to kill all eight farmers, so as not to attract attention,” militia leader Babakura Kolo said. Local communities have resorted to armed vigilantes or militias, who work alongside the army, as self-defense. “They (Boko Haram) hacked the farmers...

A Catholic charity has launched a campaign urging Prime Minister Boris Johnson to grant UK asylum to a young Christian girl in Pakistan receiving death threats from a Muslim rapist who forced her to marry him and convert to Islam. During the coronavirus lockdown, Mohamad Nakash kidnapped at gunpoint Maira Shahbaz, a 14-year-old Catholic girl from the Punjab Province, gang-raped her with two other accomplices, blackmailed her, and forced her to convert to Islam. In early August, the Lahore High Court ruled that Shahbaz had voluntarily converted to Islam and therefore is legally married to Mr. Nakash, who claimed that...

Britain’s national inquiry into child sex abuse has been blasted for ‘cowardice’ over race as it refused to look at grooming gang scandals carried out by mostly Pakistani gangs, or to hear from key witnesses. Victims of the grooming gangs ... blasted the public probe, ..., after it emerged would not be examining any of the notorious cases in which ‘Asian’ gangs have preyed on thousands of mostly white, working class girls. The Inquiry has so far looked at organisations like the Church of England and the Armed Forces... It was believed that the ‘organised networks’ section of the inquiry...

Paris (AFP) — France’s largest employers’ federation on Monday urged companies to “resist the blackmail” over a product boycott by Arab countries as a backlash widens over Paris’s hardened stance against radical Islam. French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to take the fight to Islamic radicals after the October 16 beheading of a history teacher who had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed to pupils in a class discussion on free speech. But his comments triggered protests in Muslim-majority countries at the weekend, with people burning pictures of Macron in Syria and setting fire to French flags in the Libyan...

According to Yasna, an association that promotes Zoroastrianism in Kurdistan, since 2014 about 15,000 people have registered with the organization, most of them Kurds converting from Islam.Aram Mehdi, an Iraqi Kurd who recently converted from Islam to Zoroastriansim, poses for camera as he holds a pendant representing Zoroaster, in Dohuk, Iraq Carefully tucking his Farvahar pendant under his shirt, Aram Mehdi reminds himself of the core Zoroastrian principles it represents: good words, good thoughts and good deeds.Born and raised in a conservative Muslim family, the 31-year-old Iraqi Kurd from the city of Dohuk, in the north of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan...

At least seven soldiers have been killed by Boko Haram insurgents in Doska, Borno state, military sources have told TheCable. The troops were said to be on a patrol to the area when they got tricked by the insurgents who appeared in military uniforms and gun trucks. Doska, a village in between Ajigin and Talala in Damboa local government area of the state, became deserted since 2015 when the insurgents took control of the area which today remains one of their strongholds. “The troops were on a fighting patrol, and when they got to Doska, they saw these people in...

YERUSHALAYIM - Southern Israel was under attack on Tuesday night as an Iron Dome interceptor shot down a rocket fired out of Gaza. Air raid sirens sounded in towns in the Gaza periphery, including Kfar Aza and Nahal Oz. The military later confirmed the reports of an attack. Channel 12 said that at least one rocket was seemingly downed near Sderot. A security video shows what appears to be an Iron Dome interceptor missile sent skyward. No injuries have been reported. Details as they emerge.

Explosive balloons were spotted over Sapir Academic College near Sderot on Monday, according to ynet. An explosive charge attached to the balloons reportedly detonated in the air, but the balloons continued to travel and are being tracked by security officials. A balloon landed at the Amdocs Factory in Sderot shortly afterwards, according to ynet. It is unclear if this is the same balloon as the one spotted over Sapir College. Except for sporadic balloon launches in September, the launches had largely stopped since a ceasefire was reached between Hamas and Israel at the end of August after weeks of...

Another barbaric terrorist attack by ISIS (Islamic State – IS) aimed at Shia Muslims in Kabul killed at least 24 young people. Over many decades different Sunni Islamist terrorist groups have targeted the Shia in Afghanistan. Therefore, the latest massacre joins a long list of sectarian violence. The ISIS suicide bomber had hoped to enter an education center to kill even more. However, he was spotted, thus the suicide bomber detonated just outside the education center. The BBC reports, “The building in the predominantly Shia Muslim Dasht-e-Barchi area usually hosts hundreds of students.” ISIS immediately claimed responsibility for killing innocent...

Three young men were killed and set ablaze in the village of Toulk in northern Kirkuk province on Saturday evening. Peshmerga fighter Aram Mustafa, his brother Harez and cousin Peshawa Abdulrahman, all in their 20s, were searching for cattle in the area when they were killed. According to village residents, the three men were shot dead in their vehicle and were then set on fire. According to Luqman Sartki, commander of the Peshmerga’s 11th Brigade, bullet fragments were left in the vehicle but no other evidence was recovered from the scene. Aram and Harez’s father say the three men were...

The grisly killing 10 days ago of a French school teacher had many of the hallmarks of past attacks carried out by the bloody Islamist terror outfit ISIS. A well-defined symbolic target in the West: Samuel Paty, a respected history and geography teacher who'd been criticized by a Muslim parent and Islamist agitator for showing satirical cartoons of the prophet Muhammad as part of his annual lesson on free speech; the brazen brutality of the act: a swift stabbing and beheading with a butcher knife on a street near the school north of Paris; online exchanges discovered later between the perpetrator, a...